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Design

The B41Y1 was the only three-stage device ever built by the U.S. As opposed to the usual fission Primary and fusion Secondary of a Teller-Ulam design, this bomb's uranium tamper constituted a Tertiary. [1] The Y2 version lacked the Tertiary.

In the Y2 version, the device had the highest weight-to-yield ratio of any U.S. nuclear weapon. Carey Sublette quoted Theodore Taylor as saying the maximum practical ratio was 6.0KT yield per pound of nuclear weapon; the deployed weapon, with parachutes and other weight that was not part of the ratio calculation, was 10,670 lb. Test devices from which the B-41 was weaponized, however, were in the 9,100 pound range, consistent with Taylor's estimate.[2]